Last night I had an irrational craving for the cheap comfort food of my youth - American Chop Suey.
However, my traditional preparation of American Chop Suey took two very different turns when I received the recent issue of Cook's Illustrated and found within it a recipe for Italian meat sauce, and then realized that I had a bag of Mexican cheese nearing it's expiration date.
Hence, Mexican Chop Suey was born.
Rather than saute some garlic & onion and then add ground beef, I took Cook's approach and mashed up some torn white bread with milk and then added that to the beef. Cook's gave some chemical reaction for the reasoning behind this and a fancy name for it, but this is Trailer Park Dinner, so I will not use the fancy lingo.
Also, for full disclosure I must confess that I used Ragu for the sauce, and did not make my own as I usually do.
So, I browned my fancy bread/meat mixture and then added Ragu ("old world" traditional style). To that lovely sauce, which I was told looked like Hamburger Helper (which, I guess, it was) or sloppy Joes, I added my cooked pasta shells and some canned corn. If I were really going Mexican, I probably would have also added some green chilis, but I didn't have any on hand. Once the pasta was mixed in, I added in the Mexican cheese, which made it nice and gooey.
I had already made garlic bread to go with it (since orignally this was going to be regular American Chop Suey). If I were really crafy, I would have instead made cornbread.
To kick this up another notch, I might have turned it into a Mexican pasta BAKE. That's right. I would have thrown it in a casserole and baked it with some cornbread ON TOP. That is totally the type of recipe one might find somewhere in Parade magazine.
Maybe my cooking partner in crime's husband can get me a job at Kraft - this seems right up their alley.
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